Life, Leadership and Business

Sunday, 19 March 2017

Cultural Awareness

Sadly, polarisation
seems to be the current trend in the world at the moment. This is a dangerous
attitude to own in the “global village” of our modern world.

Our
workplaces, neighbourhoods and public areas are filled with people from various
culture groups and backgrounds. We are exposed to all sorts of age groups,
religious persuasions and life attitudes each and every minute. This
cosmopolitan environment requires each of us to be able to demonstrate some
awareness and sensitivity to other culture groups.

The skill
of Cultural Awareness is not about throwing open your arms in unconditional
welcome to one and all, nor is it about melting your own culture and beliefs
with those of your neighbours. Rather it is about having enough sense as not to
“lose your rag” because someone is different, but enquiring about the others
point of view and sharing of your own in an open and empathetic manner in order
to be productive and efficient in the situation.

Prejudice
can destroy harmony in a shared public space. Prejudice is simply a learned
belief or way of thinking. Racial, gender or religious bias are often taught
from one generation to the next. These biases can ignite strong emotions in the
holder of the bias.

The central
theme to bias or prejudice thinking is the loss of individuality or uniqueness.
Prejudice targets a general group of people and labels them as “all the same.” “All
women are bad drivers” is a mindset that could result in a man not trusting the
ladies in vehicles around him. Yet, his own daughter is free to borrow his car
on the weekends.

Why does
the man with this bias not trust “all women” but willingly shares his car with
his daughter? Is he not aware his daughter is a woman too? Or has his prejudice
been tamed because he has personal knowledge of this woman?

He knows
her. He taught her to drive. As a consequence of this “insider” information,
the fact his daughter is a woman no longer triggers his bias and associated
emotions.

Respect,
curiosity and openness are important elements to being culturally aware.

Working
with the basic respect and regard for another person as a human, just like me,
deflates the

fear. I am then free to approach someone without antagonism. My
mother always taught me to initially treat all people with the same level of
respect. How they respond to that respect determines my attitude towards them
going forward.

Curiosity
allows a person to respectfully enquire and discover the in’s an out’s of
someone else’s life. Curiosity will allow you to observe free of judgement – “Are you wrong or are you
right? Are you good or are you bad?” This evaluating attitude causes others to
be defensive and can result in retaliation. Being judgement-free will allow your
objectivity to observe and form questions that will help you understand. Being
understood is a basic element in human nature, common to us all regardless of
age, gender, race, culture or disability.

Openness
allows a person to freely share the experiences and traditions of being on the
inside of a culture group. Just as much as we learn of another person’s
experience, so we should share our own. In sharing our own experience, we need to
put the emphasis, not of the differences, but on the similarities.

Cultural
awareness is about focusing on similarities in order to unify our team. We use
the differences as unique elements that will strengthen the skills and
abilities of our team.

As a skill, everyone within the team can benefit from being welcomed
as part of the team for their similarities to the others in the group, yet celebrated
for and encouraged to contribute their uniqueness. This ability to both unify people and celebrate their differences forms the basis for powerful leadership of any team.

This skill
doesn’t require you to be an Anthropologist, but enables you to welcome,
develop, motivate and reward people from all walks of life in an effective and
efficient way.

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